On November 15 2014 20:52 Unentschieden wrote: That raises an interesting question: Can we live without growth?
Nope. Unless we restructure our society, a collapse is inevitable. It'll be slow, but it'll happen.
What is growth to you? Growth is one of the most diffuse terms in science, assuming that you can actually consider economy a science. It's not uncommen to hear people in physics and other similar fields compare economics to theology in terms of scientific integrity. As long as value is decided by supply and demand we could sustain a massive reduction in GDP without lowering our living standards.
Just look at these two pair of jeans. One pair from H&M and one pair from Dolce & Gabbana. In spite of the fact that the Dolce & Gabbana jeans are actually damaged, they still hold a value more than 18 times that of the H&M jeans. A pair of jeans in mint condition mind you.
Another thing to consider is the fact that we are currently throwing away fortunes worth of all sorts of waste - food being one of them. Denmark and Sweden is currently throwing away enough food to feed Norway. USA could probably feed the whole of South America in wasted food. I spend about $250 every 6 month on new jeans because i wear out the crotch area, meaning that i own about 12 pair of jeans, that i don't use because there is a hole in the crotch area. If someone were to modify my jeans in such a manner that i could replace the crotch area as it wears out, i would probably have jeans for a few decades.
The only reason that we need to sustain a high growth rate is because our consumption has reached absurd levels.
On November 18 2014 07:44 Dwayn wrote: We have really stupid economic policies going on. Merkels popularity and austerity fetishism could be germany's downfall-
On November 18 2014 07:37 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Just out of curiousity, what jeans are you wearing that it gets worn out after 6 months so I know to never buy this jean.
I think he was just bragging that he has a giant penis.
as far as i can see the japan trap is a persistent self fulfilling fear of deficit contrary to near term response. that sales tax raise was just terrible.
On November 15 2014 20:52 Unentschieden wrote: That raises an interesting question: Can we live without growth?
Nope. Unless we restructure our society, a collapse is inevitable. It'll be slow, but it'll happen.
What is growth to you? Growth is one of the most diffuse terms in science, assuming that you can actually consider economy a science. It's not uncommen to hear people in physics and other similar fields compare economics to theology in terms of scientific integrity. As long as value is decided by supply and demand we could sustain a massive reduction in GDP without lowering our living standards.
Just look at these two pair of jeans. One pair from H&M and one pair from Dolce & Gabbana. In spite of the fact that the Dolce & Gabbana jeans are actually damaged, they still hold a value more than 18 times that of the H&M jeans. A pair of jeans in mint condition mind you.
Another thing to consider is the fact that we are currently throwing away fortunes worth of all sorts of waste - food being one of them. Denmark and Sweden is currently throwing away enough food to feed Norway. USA could probably feed the whole of South America in wasted food. I spend about $250 every 6 month on new jeans because i wear out the crotch area, meaning that i own about 12 pair of jeans, that i don't use because there is a hole in the crotch area. If someone were to modify my jeans in such a manner that i could replace the crotch area as it wears out, i would probably have jeans for a few decades.
The only reason that we need to sustain a high growth rate is because our consumption has reached absurd levels.
There are many things wrong with the millenials in Germany, but their tendency towards a high-recycling, high-reuse, low-consumption, low-waste, green-friendly lifestyle is not one of them. It is, at the end of a sorry century of German cultural decline, a small recompense to think and hope that the progressive Americanisation of German society is slowly receding into the past. That would be a symptom of trends far more important than anything relating to the narrow economic sphere of life, because after all, economics is merely a sub-category of politics, which is in turn a sub-category of ethics. Attempts to stimulate something as inchoate as "consumption" among German taxpayers merely begs the question of how much thought anyone actually put into the problem. And if they didn't bother to think about what they wanted the German consumer to actually consume, it is because they have the Aristotlean hierarchy flipped on its head; and man is merely seen as fodder for the economy, rather than the reverse, whatever the humanitarian protestations to the contrary.
The problem for the macroeconomist is that increasingly in the German and I suspect also Scandinavian societies, people are finding themselves happier by consuming less. Fiddling with macroeconomic manipulations to alter those discovered tastes is not only hopeless, but unethical.
notice how german debt is getting less? notice how US debt is growing at an incredible pace? dont point fingers.
Also noticed how the German self-imposed austerity is actually disastrous for infrastructure because there's no money to maintain it, let alone invest in it?
Germany is not the economic paradise many people make it out to be.
notice how german debt is getting less? notice how US debt is growing at an incredible pace? dont point fingers.
Also noticed how the German self-imposed austerity is actually disastrous for infrastructure because there's no money to maintain it, let alone invest in it?
Actually, I have not noticed this. I know that there was an article recently in Der Spiegel harping on this very hypothesis, but it does not correlate with my personal observations. It could be that I am living in a bubble, but apart from not seeing many of these fabled potholes on the Franconian highways, I have seen many unnecessary renovation and construction projects in various towns, which seem to have no purpose other than as make-work projects.
notice how german debt is getting less? notice how US debt is growing at an incredible pace? dont point fingers.
Also noticed how the German self-imposed austerity is actually disastrous for infrastructure because there's no money to maintain it, let alone invest in it?
Germany is not the economic paradise many people make it out to be.
There are people in germany who know this. But its a thing in germany nowadays that everybody rants about the things that go wrong but no one does anything.
It also depends on to what exactly you compare it.
Germanies infrastructure compared to Scandinavia/Switzerland/Netherlands....not getting as much love? Yeah, maybe. Germanies infrastructure looking bad when compared to France, the US and GB? From my personal experience and stuff I read.. No, not at all, not the slightest bit... But well... The effects of low spending on infrastructure will be visible in 10-20 years, not now... So its kinda hard to judge this "now".
On November 18 2014 18:49 Velr wrote: It also depends on to what exactly you compare it.
Germanies infrastructure compared to Scandinavia/Switzerland/Netherlands....not getting as much love? Yeah, maybe. Germanies infrastructure looking bad when compared to France, the US and GB? From my personal experience and stuff I read.. No, not at all, not the slightest bit... But well... The effects of low spending on infrastructure will be visible in 10-20 years, not now... So its kinda hard to judge this "now".
That's the problem with politics nowadays: no long-term thinking. It's all about policies that will win them the next elections, not about policies that will benefit the country in the long term.
It feels as if governments in Europe are run by accountants nowadays whose only goal is to solve the short-term problems without regard for long-term effects.
Its hardly "the goverments" fault if any Party that wants to enhance spending is not getting voted in ... At least the Germans seem to like Merkel and her policy of just doing nothing for some weird reason... A "few" prestigious and important projects being planned by total imbeciles with obviously no clue what they are doing doesn't help too (Berlin Airport among others)
On November 18 2014 19:26 Velr wrote: Its hardly "the goverments" fault if any Party that wants to enhance spending is not getting voted in ... At least the Germans seem to like Merkel and her policy of just doing nothing for some weird reason... A "few" prestigious and important projects being planned by total imbeciles with obviously no clue what they are doing doesn't help too (Berlin Airport among others)
Well a popular opinion in germany is: "it doesn´t matter which party we vote for we(the people) will get ripped off anyway so we vote for Merkel and co because it wasn´t that bad the last years"
This mentality is likely to remain unless our current government causes a huge downfall of our situation (which will eventually come but most people dont see this yet)
I really don't get this. Having too much debt is of course dangerous and should be avoided, but to contract loans at a reasonable rate means getting richer faster. Why on earth would you not invest in your rapidly aging infrastructure if you had the money to do it? Why not invest in your own demography too ? In 10 years, France will be more populous than Germany, just by natural birth rate.
Just how do you "invest" in your demography? This is the most serious crisis on the horizon, yet I have not seen any proactive proposals floated apart from basically subsidising the costs of parenting. Everyone is treating it as if it were a primarily economic problem. The entire ethical agenda has shifted towards horizontal "compassion" at the expense of the vertical. Family by its very nature implies hierarchy, and that is something our parents' generation liberated themselves from long ago.
Well yes of course you have to "subsidize" the cost of parenting. You also have to make progress in gender equality. Right now in Germany, women have to take a 3 years break or so from work to raise children. Some will say because it is socially not very well accepted not to raise your children on your own, I prefer to say that it's the lack of childcare that restrict a woman's option. So they just don't make children and continue to work. I think you invest in demography by doing the following: - Make childcare inexpensive and available for everyone - Make education inexpensive and available for everyone - State allowance for each children - The more children you have, the less tax you pay - Split equally mother and father rights to take vacations when having a newborn child And so on.
here's the result of such policies:
France:
France is an outlier among developed countries in general, and European countries in particular, in having a fairly high rate of natural population growth: by birth rates alone, France was responsible for almost all natural population growth in the European Union in 2006, with the natural growth rate (excess of births over deaths) rising to 300,000.[208] This was the highest rate since the end of the baby boom in 1973, and coincides with the rise of the total fertility rate from a nadir of 1.7 in 1994 to 2.0 in 2010.[209][210] From 2006 to 2011 population growth was on average +0.6% per year.[208]
Germany:
The fertility rate of 1.41 children born per woman (2011 estimates), or 8.33 births per 1000 inhabitants, is one of the lowest in the world.[4] Since the 1970s, Germany's death rate has continuously exceeded its birth rate.[168] The Federal Statistical Office of Germany has forecast that the population could shrink to between 65 and 70 million by 2060 (depending on the level of net migration)
There is a lot of good historical facts that are important in the video, but just wanted to precise some things: the hyperinflation that happened in Germany during the Weimar Republic is not only the result of the war reparation and the monetisation that occured to do so. Hyperinflation in itself is not, imo, an economic phenomena, but always happen when the politic institutions are unstable. The hyperinflation in Germany is both the result of the war reparation and the money that the institutions printed, but also the result of the institutions inability to control the monetary base and its evolution (and as soon as the central bank started to act in 1923, the result on hyperinflation were pretty quick). It's important because for many people, printing money will result in an uncontrolable inflation, but it is not true : hyperinflation, unlike inflation, happen with political instability.
Also, he has a completly ideologically biased view of the reason as to why unemployment and growth rise and fall, and his vision of the history is a bit poor. Compare it to polanyi, who see the "free market" as one of the main reason as to why the two world war appeared in the first place, he is just a random 1rst econ students who make quick interpretations ("free dem marketsssssss") and play with concept he does not master (growth... there is a well known catching up effect that explain the huge GDP growth in europe during the thirty glorious, so comparing those numbers with current US growth is kinda stupid).